Ask Kalena

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Greetings all - I ran out of time to get the full details up on the web site today (it’s now 12.54 am!) but on the blog tomorrow, we’ll be announcing details of our new Article Marketing and Distribution course at Search Engine College for which we have now opened enrollments. If you’d like a sneak peek at what the course covers, check out our press release.

More tomorrow! Make that today. Or something. I need sleep.

Popularity: 20%

I can’t quite believe it, but on this day four years ago, Search Engine College was launched.

The staff meeting that first spawned the idea for SEC seems like a lifetime ago now, but I’m consistently amazed at the growth we’ve undergone month after month, year after year.

Last month saw the highest level of student enrollments to date and it looks like this month is set to beat that record. As of last month, we have enrolled over 500 students from 33 different countries! That’s quite an achievement for a small business and I’m very proud today.

On behalf of our staff and tutors, I want to take this opportunity to thank every single one of our students, not only for choosing us as their training provider, but for providing excellent feedback and support as we have developed the business model and grown as educators. It’s inspiring to hear regularly from so many graduates who have used their training to advance their careers in search. I’d also like to thank the search marketing community for embracing us so readily and promoting our training programs via social media networks, blogs, forums and word of mouth. It means a great deal to us.

Finally (at the risk of this sounding like an Academy Award acceptance speech), a huge appreciative thanks must go to our remarkable and dedicated tutors, particularly Kim, Karon and Bob who have been especially patient during our growing pains - thank you, you’re wonderful.

Happy Birthday Search Engine College!

Popularity: 26%

We are thrilled to be sponsoring Marketing Pilgrim’s Search Engine Marketing Scholarship once again this year. The competition involves submitting an article on any subject related to search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC) or social media optimization (SMO) before May 23.

The 2008 scholarship is MP’s third in the series and offers the biggest prize pool to date - a USD 10,000 prize package that includes training, subscriptions, consulting, books, an Amazon gift certificate and broad online exposure for the winning article.

As long time sponsors, Search Engine College will be donating enrollment in our Certified Search Engine Marketer Pathway for the lucky winner. I’ve also been asked to judge again this year, so I’m really looking forward to reading all the entries.

On June 30, the five entries that have achieved the highest overall traffic will be selected. To ensure quality traffic influences the outcome, if an entry achieves an average “Bounce Rate” below 75% it will be awarded a bonus equal to 10% of its total “unique views”. If an entry achieves an average “Time on Page” greater than 2:00 minutes, it will be awarded a bonus equal to 10% of its total “unique views”. On July 7, Marketing Pilgrim will announce the grand prize winner, which will be the entry that receives the most votes from the panel of judges.

Good luck everyone and make sure you get your entries in early.

Popularity: 23%

SMX Sydney was my first Search Marketing Expo and from what I am hearing, I am not the only one who was impressed. See Rand Fishkin’s blog post regarding SMX Sydney.

This year Search Engine College was one of the official sponsors and as such Kalena and I (wo)manned an exhibition stand at the Expo. As a first-timer, this provided me with the chance to meet several industry rock stars and to really get a feel for the search marketing industry. The sessions were informative, all exhibitions were well put together and the atmosphere was professional - yet relaxed and friendly.

Our stall was quite busy with plenty of interest regarding training options for emerging search engine marketing professionals. Even so, Kalena and I both managed to sneak off and attend several sessions happening downstairs throughout the two days.

In this post I want to highlight several points Ciaran Norris from Altogether Digital, made in his presentation “Copy Writing for Search”…

When writing articles, blog posts or web site copy that you wish to be easily digestible by humans and search engines alike, keep the following in mind:

Keep headlines clear and concise: Avoid metaphors and abbreviations. A reader should have a good idea about the subject of the piece they are about to read, simply by looking at the headline.

The opening sentence of the first paragraph is very important: Aim to capture the attention of your readers immediately. The first sentence of an article or blog post is often used by search engines when displaying your link in the results page for a search query (SERP). Research has shown that click through rates are greatly influenced by the two lines of text displayed under a link in the SERP.

Conduct a competitive analysis of keywords: Research which keywords or phrases achieve higher click through rates for similar articles. If you want to reach an audience outside your own region use keywords which are not region specific.

Placement of links within copy: Ciaran pointed out the difference between online and offline copy is the ability to link. When using embedded links make sure your reader has a clear idea about what they are going to find when they click through. Do not use vague link descriptions as this can frustrate and alienate your reader. Important links should be used early in your article, less important links towards the end. Links which are not directly related, but still useful to your reader, are best placed boxed-off somewhere to the right or bottom of the page. Linking can also be used to create a timeline of issues related to your subject. One of the ways to do this is to create a landing page and link to every relevant article regarding your subject.

Track people who link to you: Keep track of who links to you and build a network of industry contacts regarding your subject matter. Find blogs which are related to your niche and link to them. Establish yourself as a voice of authority. A reader who finds you through five or six different sources will recognize you as a trusted source of information regarding your subject.

Ciaran is a fabulously entertaining presenter and his session really appealed to my background in journalism. This was the first of three sessions I attended and I will include another post with notes from Jane Copeland’s session on Link Baiting shortly.

From all of us involved in the search marketing industry in this part of the world, many thanks go to Barry Smyth and Lisa Davis for organizing such a fantastic event, and also to the many international speakers who traveled so far to be with us here in the land “Down Under”.

Popularity: 46%

We’ve been busy bees at Search Engine College this week. First up, we’ve created new Certification Seals for graduating students to place on their web sites as proof they have completed a Certification course with us.

The new seals replace our existing ribbon-style seals and contain the student id number embedded within them to aid verification of a student’s Certification status by potential employers or clients. You can see an example on our Certification page.

Inspired by the Google AdWords Professional program (GAP) and the verification page provided for every GAP, we have also created a dedicated Certification Status page for every graduate of Search Engine College. The status page lists a student’s id number, the course/s they have successfully completed and any resulting Certification. It also displays a copy of their Certification Seal for verification purposes. Example here.

Any graduate wishing to replace their old Certification Seal with the new version and obtain their Status Page URL should contact me.

Popularity: 28%